Kane

Los Angeles is terrorized by a series of murders. One man can stop the killer: Detective Daniel Kane. But for Kane--devastated by personal tragedy and haunted by a secret that could destroy his family--to do so may cost him everything, even his life . . . 

At times chilling, funny, and occasionally brutal, *Kane* is a nonstop thriller filled with complex characters, surprising twists, and unforgettable scenes. From a political firestorm that sends the investigation spinning out of control to an unexpected, breath-taking climax, *Kane* will keep you in suspense until the turn of the final heart-pounding page.

### About the Author

STEVE GANNON is the author of A Song for the Asking, a bestselling novel originally published by Bantam. His newest thriller, Kane, was released in September, 2011. A book of short fiction titled Stepping Stones is scheduled for print early next year, and Allison, his third Kane Novel, will be released in September, 2012. Gannon lives in Idaho, where he is the Executive Director of Sun Valley Artist Series, a nonprofit organization devoted to the promotion and encouragement of the art of classical music. He spends his time skiing, presenting an annual series of classical music performances and educational programs, and working on a new novel. To contact Steve Gannon, purchase books, or to join his email list to receive updates on new releases, please visit his website at: www.stevegannonauthor.com

KANE

Steve Gannon

A

KANE

NOVEL

Kane

All Rights Reserved

Copyright © 2012 by Steve Gannon

Kane
is a work of fiction.  Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.  Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Gannon, Steve.

Kane / Steve Gannon.

p.     cm.

ISBN  978-0-615-53688-0

Printed in the United States of America

10   9  8  7  6  5  4  3  2  1

In loving memory of my son

Dexter Reid Gannon

This is the Hour of Lead—

Remembered, if outlived,

As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow—

First—Chill—then Stupor—then letting go—

                                          ~ Emily Dickinson

Look to the living, love them, and hold on.

                                         ~ Douglas Dunn

… in the end, love is all that matters.

                                     ~ Dex Gannon

Prologue

H
e had been right to change the game.  Of that he was certain.  Still, he was increasingly troubled by the danger inherent in his recent actions, danger he’d precipitated by breaking rules that had long kept him safe.  Nevertheless, this new game simply felt …
right
.

He stood motionless, slowing his breathing as his eyes adjusted to the darkness.  Gradually he began to discern dim shapes across the room:  refrigerator, stove, dishes piled by the sink.  In an adjacent alcove, a desk sat littered with papers, pencils, pens.  Riding invisible currents, smells came to him as well.  The aroma of stale pizza.  A hint of fabric softener.  A waft of perfume. 

Her
scent.

Outside, a breeze stirred in the night.  Swaying with the wind, skeletal limbs of a nearby sycamore scratched at the roof.  Upstairs, a sudden creak.

He froze, his senses straining.

Someone getting up, like last time?

Another creak.

He waited, palms slippery inside the latex gloves.

Silence.

He relaxed his grip on the pistol.  Quietly, he pulled a dishtowel from a drying rack by the sink, stepped to the alcove, and lifted a telephone from the desktop.  After punching in several random digits, he wrapped the towel around the receiver and set it back on the desk.  Next he made his way to an electrical breaker panel behind the laundry room door.

Do it quickly, but don’t let them snap.

Covering the power panel with a wad of clothes from the laundry counter, he sequentially flipped off the toggles.  Upon finishing, he heard a tinny voice sounding from the kitchen:  “Your call cannot be completed as dialed.  Please check the number and try again.”  Then came a series of beeps, muffled by the towel but still alarmingly audible.

Careful not to make a sound, he quickly returned to the kitchen and found more dishtowels, further encasing the phone.

Better.

He stood in the dark, listening.

Nothing.

Satisfied no one had heard, he crept to a freestanding chopping block in the center of the room.  After setting his knapsack on the maple surface, he reached for a rack of knives hanging by the stove.  On his first visit he had noticed the black-handled utensils marked with the
Zwilling J.A. Henckles
imprint.  Pulse quickening, he selected a razor-sharp utility knife with a four-inch blade.  Next, with growing excitement, he reshouldered his knapsack and eased through the living room to the front of the house.  There, a staircase led to the second floor.

Now?

Not yet.  Give it a few more minutes.

Better safe than sorry.

He forced himself to wait on the bottom tread, an exquisite pressure building within.  He pictured the woman as he had last seen her, long limbed and glistening with sweat, exercise tights clinging to her torso like a layer of paint.

Time to move.

In the rooms above, the family slept, unaware they were about to embark on a short but singular journey, one he was certain would prove the most intense of their otherwise insipid existence.

A moment later he started up the stairs.

1

Y
ears ago my ex-partner, Arnie Mercer, was going through a particularly tough time in his personal life.  Eventually he started seeing a therapist.  Rather than talking with someone provided by the LAPD, Arnie chose instead to visit a private counselor in West Los Angeles—understandably not wanting his psychiatric treatment to show up in his police personnel jacket.

Like most cops who’ve run up against an “expert witness” shrink testifying in court to save some dirtbag defendant, I have little faith in the psychiatric profession.  That said, the guy Arnie hooked up with struck me as even more of a quack than usual.  I don’t know whether the counselor in question actually believed the stuff he was feeding Arnie, or whether it was simply an approach designed to help my partner sort out his problems.

Either way, Arnie and I talked about it.  In a nutshell, here’s what Arnie’s therapist had to say:  We’re all the center of our own little universe, and there’s no reality other than the one we each create for ourselves.  Now, I could argue that one all day, and I did.  If somebody hits you with a pipe, it raises a lump that’s real.  You’re not making it up.  On the other hand, Dr. X also contended—somewhat to the contrary, in my opinion—that being in control of your own little universe is merely an illusion.  According to him, no one really controls
anything
in life that truly matters—and the sooner you accepted that, the better.  I guess the lesson was to just sit back, don’t worry, and let things happen.

Naturally, I considered this a load of horseshit.  I also realized that, following an exceptionally nasty divorce, Arnie was simply trying to get his life back on track as best he could.  Being the sensitive person I am, I voiced my opinion to Arnie as gently as I could.  “Arnie, that’s a load of horseshit,” I told him.

It’s been years since, but recently I’ve begun to have my doubts—at least about the “being in control” part.  Not regarding little things, of course.  As for the big things—sure, we all think we can control significant parts of our lives, the parts that matter.  The
important
things.

Then, without warning, something ugly crawls out of nowhere and proves just how wrong we are.

Several years ago and a lot of tears in the past, my oldest son Tom died in a rock climbing accident.  The cliché that advises parents not to outlive their children is true.  Anyone who has lost a child knows it leaves a heart-wrenching emptiness inside you that can never be filled, a bottomless ache that may dull with time but will never be gone.  Tommy’s death devastated me.  I simply … broke.  I crawled into a bottle and stayed drunk for days.  Blinded by grief, I did and said things of which I’m ashamed—terrible, hurtful things I wish I could take back.

But of course I can’t.

Anyway, that morning as the sun crested a ridge to the east, I was sitting on a grassy slope in Forest Lawn Cemetery looking out over the city of Burbank and trying not to think about how things might have turned out if I had been a better father, a better man, when I noticed my wife Catheryn’s Volvo angling into a slot beside my beach-rusted Suburban in the parking lot below.

I had come out to visit Tom’s grave early that day, leaving Santa Monica before sunrise to avoid freeway traffic.  Catheryn and I had decided on a temporary separation several weeks back, and I had been bunking in Arnie’s spare bedroom in Santa Monica ever since.

Curious, I watched as my three remaining children piled out of the Volvo—Travis, who had been driving, Allison, and Nate—followed by a relatively new four-legged addition to the Kane household, a two-year-old yellow Labrador retriever named Callie.  No sign of Catheryn.

Not waiting for his siblings, Nate started up the slope, picking his way through rows of brass memorial plaques that curved across the hillside like contour lines on a map.  Eager to explore, Callie bounded past Nate, enthusiastically sniffing her new surroundings.

“Nate, dogs aren’t allowed,” Allison called.

Ignoring her, Nate continued up the rise, his head lowered against the early-morning sun.

With a smile, I watched as my children approached.  They hadn’t spotted me yet, and I felt a familiar surge of pride as I followed their progress up the slope.  At nineteen, Travis was now in his second year of college at USC, and more and more I sensed he had matured in some indefinable manner.  Tall and lanky, with long limbs and an artistic economy of movement not inherited from me, Travis had developed a hard layer of muscle over the past year.  The construction job he’d held for the third consecutive summer had worked wonders, although I realized Trav would never have the strength and agility at sports that had come so naturally to Tommy.

Allison had matured lately as well.  At seventeen, she’d finally emerged from a gawky phase of adolescence that she had considered her own private hell since turning fourteen.  Her figure had softened with the emerging curves of womanhood, but strangely, the more she’d developed, the more she’d taken to hiding behind a constellation of baggy sweaters, broad-brimmed hats, and an endless collection of jackets, work shirts, and loose fitting jeans—like the odd mismatch she wore today.  As she broke from shadow into sunlight, I noticed that her long reddish hair, a trait all the Kane kids had inherited from me, seemed to have recently darkened, deepening to a rich auburn more like her mother’s.  Like Catheryn, Allison was going to be a beauty.  Everyone saw it but her.